Acknowledgments
Inscribed bronzes from ancient China were the products of concerted work by many skilled people, from the miners who extracted the ore from the ground; to the craftspeople who smelted ore, shaped clay molds, and poured molten metal; to the authors and scribes of the inscriptions cast into them – and, beyond that, the devotees of the ancestral worship in which they were used, as well as the kings, nobles, and others whose viewpoints and purposes their inscriptions served. As a modern student of bronzes, I can glimpse these processes only through the mists of time. However, I have the great pleasure of knowing the many people whose time, effort, and care allowed this book about bronzes to exist, as well as the privilege of expressing my gratitude to them in this public forum.
KRRI, as I tend to call this book, rose from the ashes of a dissertation written for the Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University, so thanks are due to all who helped me see it through: my instructors, including Zoe Crossland, Terence D’Altroy, Severin Fowles, Robert Hymes, Ellen Morris, Wendy Swartz, and especially Li Feng; my classmates, Glenda Chao, Han-peng Ho, Maxim Korolkov, Brian Landor, and Minna Wu; the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, for training support; Columbia’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, for research travel support; and the Whiting Foundation, for a dissertation fellowship.
In coaxing the work along from dissertation to book, I’ve benefited from the advice and emotional support of many colleagues both in and out of the early China field. At Heidelberg, reading groups with Enno Giele, Guo Jue, Joachim Kurtz, and the other “Sophies” and “Sloggers” helped me refine my approach to the material and expand my intellectual horizons. Among those who have spent time in that beautiful town, it’s something of a tradition to recall picturesque strolls along the Philosophenweg, but I’ve never been much of a hiker. My happy memories of Heidelberg – those that don’t concern the birth of my daughter, anyway – are mostly set in the little courtyard cottage in the Brunnengasse where we had our discussions.
Back home again in Indiana, Michael Ing, Aaron Stalnaker, Nai-Yi Hsu, and the many other participants in the Early China Reading Group at IU Bloomington have commented on drafts, reviewed translations, given publication advice, and otherwise helped gently shepherd the book through to completion, for which they have my gratitude. My many colleagues in the East Asian Languages and Cultures department have all offered a friendly and supportive community in which to carry through the work. I’ll single out Scott O’Bryan, who took great pains to make sure I had the time and environment I needed to finish, and Ethan Michelson, who helped me understand the publication sequence much better. I’m also grateful for the support that Indiana University has provided throughout the last several years, including a grant-in-aid from OVPR that helped with the preparation of the manuscript.
Speaking of which: The publication team deserves accolades for handling this complex manuscript with aplomb. My thanks go to the editorial team of Beatrice Rehl, Edgar Mendez, Kaye Barbaro, and Aloysias Saint Thomas, as well as to the many professionals with whom I had no direct contact, but whose work was no doubt vital. Ursula Acton’s copyediting was both meticulous and speedy, and Cynthia Col put together not one, but two excellent indexes; I thank them both. I’m grateful as well to the various institutions that allowed reproduction of the vessel and inscription images; they are credited throughout the book, but I’d like to single out Chen Xingcan for his personal help.
Over the years, I have benefited from the comments and suggestions of more people than I can name. Here, I’ll simply extend special thanks to the Early China Seminar at Columbia University; to Lothar von Falkenhausen, Yunxiang Yan, and the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies; and to Morten Oxenboell and the Medieval Studies Program at IU, all of whom kindly allowed me to kick the tires of this project in public. I offer my general thanks to my colleagues in the field of early China studies. There are few of you at whom I haven’t droned on about bronzes at some point, and I’m grateful to you for listening. Among those whose personal connections with me doomed them to such conversations, I thank Elizabeth Stock, for a lifetime of unwavering support; Jeanne and Mike Licata, for offering me a place to stay, a hot meal, and a sympathetic ear whenever I needed them; and Nia Licata, for waiting (mostly) patiently while I worked on this book, and just for existing. Nia would object in the strongest possible terms if I didn’t also thank her twin Georgia, indistinguishable from her in every way (according to Nia, anyway).
I’ll close with three more names. Thanks to Sarah Allan, who introduced me to this field of study that I love and has offered me both frank advice and kind support ever since. Thanks once more to Li Feng, my graduate mentor, who helped me develop the skills, the mindset, and the confidence to complete this work. And deepest thanks to Elizabeth Licata, for introducing me to nearly everything I enjoy that’s *not* my work, and making all of it worthwhile by enjoying it with me; for decades of emotional, intellectual, and moral support, and for the decades more that I plan to ask her for; and for finding that missing chapter under the car seat!
